A contextualização jornalística sobre o uso da (hidroxi)cloroquina à Covid-19 no Brasil (2020-2023).

Abstract

Contextualization is one of the discursive practices we adopt to interpret texts through the relationship between their elements, signifiers and signs, and the objects they refer to in the world. Therefore, it implies an internal dimension to the text, which materializes this world in semiological elements, and an external dimension, which is broadly this concrete world. A heuristic and ontological dialectic: a world contained in the text, but not reduced to the text. However, the arrangement of signifiers tends to be manipulated by agents of disinformation. They can be articulated by subjects in the production of meanings without their relationship to the concrete world being recognized as true, if this semiological set does not correspond to what institutions identify as empirical and factual. Manipulation can be done with the intention of convincing subjects through the effects of meanings of such articulation, but without commitment to the truth. Rhetoric for rhetoric's sake, disinformation relies on subjects' predispositions to ignore the connection between statements and signs of truth – if someone does not want to believe in something/someone else, for various reasons, they ignore procedures and results of informational accuracy, in order to maintain belief in what/whom they want to believe in as “truth”. From the text to the world to which the text refers, space and time are references for the information to have recognition of truth – epistemological for Science; and factually for journalism – and, thus, be considered truthful. Often, the difference between true, false and inaccurate is not in the text itself, but in the relationship between the text, events that have occurred/will occur and a specific moment. Disinformative decontextualization is the intentional process of manipulating the arrangement of signifiers in order to convince the interlocutor about an event or implication of truth by referencing the space and time of the occurrence of the phenomena. A fact or statement may have occurred and a statement may refer to this fact. However, the space and time enunciated in a text can be different from its concrete occurrence in the world, thus resulting in a reference to inaccuracy or falsehood when information circulates and is appropriated by subjects without empiricism and facticity. During and after the Covid-19 pandemic, decontextualization was one of the modalities of misinformation about the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine for Covid-19 in Brazil – medications that made up the so-called Covid Kit, to be adopted by doctors during the so-called early treatment; and the subject of controversy among health professionals, scientists, and public and private managers. One of the oldest and largest newspapers in the country, Folha de São Paulo, guided the theme by the proposal of journalistic contextualization – situating readers in the contexts of statements and facts through space-time references. The aim here was to understand this process. Recognizing the importance of journalistic contextualization, it was possible to identify negligence on the part of Folha, its subjects and institutions with regard to some public health agendas prior to, contemporary with and after the Covid-19 pandemic, leaving a health status limited to just one historical moment. Therefore, the 'contextualization' required a conceptual review in order to understand the games of visibilities and enunciations of its practice in public health. The thesis examined the role of journalism in mediating public health information, focusing on the journalistic contextualization of the use of (hydroxy)chloroquine during the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil, from 2020 to 2023. And investigated how journalistic practices can act to contain misinformation in periods of health crisis, addressing ethical, communicational and collective health challenges amid claims to produce “truth”.